IP-PBX VS the Average Hosted Product
The Dilemma
Many companies today are faced with a dilemma of sorts in trying to decide what direction to take their business communications in. Do they go with a premise based IP-PBX solution, or do they take their company in the offsite hosted direction? Hosted marketing material boasts a low monthly cost and a low maintenance model, while the premise based solution boasts more control and the advantage of not being tied to a monthly cost for the life of the business’s communications needs. In order to make a good choice based on the facts, we must closely examine the real cost, features, and benefits of each.
Are You In Control?
As soon as you make the decision to hand off your communications needs to a hosted company, you are no longer in control. Although your hosted company may boast of having essentially no “downtime” you are still at the mercy of the hosted provider’s connections, data center issues and your local internet company. Also, you are not able to troubleshoot issues as easily as you can with a premise based system. Having a hosted solution adds another layer of support to your model; just like calling the phone company. That means you have to rely on someone who may be located halfway across the globe to help you troubleshoot your problems. Your local IT group or local communications vendor can be available in person to troubleshoot your premise based solution. Finally you can customize and make changes to a premise based system much easier than a hosted. You control the system, its upgrades and growth. The key question is, do you want control?
Is Hosted Really A Better Value?
The short answer is no, it is more expensive. To start with, in order to compare apples to apples we are going to break both solutions into a monthly cost. The one misleading marketing tactic that the hosted providers do is compare a large upfront cost of a premise based solution vs. an apparent low monthly cost of the hosted. They also fail to tell you that you are going to be paying their monthly cost forever, as long as you use their service. The truth is, once you break the IPitomy premise based solution down to a monthly payment, the hosted solution begins to lose its shine. Additionally, when you begin to compare them feature for feature, the IPitomy premise based system for example, really leaves the hosted competition lacking.
Many companies today are faced with a dilemma of sorts in trying to decide what direction to take their business communications in. Do they go with a premise based IP-PBX solution, or do they take their company in the offsite hosted direction? Hosted marketing material boasts a low monthly cost and a low maintenance model, while the premise based solution boasts more control and the advantage of not being tied to a monthly cost for the life of the business’s communications needs. In order to make a good choice based on the facts, we must closely examine the real cost, features, and benefits of each.
Are You In Control?
As soon as you make the decision to hand off your communications needs to a hosted company, you are no longer in control. Although your hosted company may boast of having essentially no “downtime” you are still at the mercy of the hosted provider’s connections, data center issues and your local internet company. Also, you are not able to troubleshoot issues as easily as you can with a premise based system. Having a hosted solution adds another layer of support to your model; just like calling the phone company. That means you have to rely on someone who may be located halfway across the globe to help you troubleshoot your problems. Your local IT group or local communications vendor can be available in person to troubleshoot your premise based solution. Finally you can customize and make changes to a premise based system much easier than a hosted. You control the system, its upgrades and growth. The key question is, do you want control?
Is Hosted Really A Better Value?
The short answer is no, it is more expensive. To start with, in order to compare apples to apples we are going to break both solutions into a monthly cost. The one misleading marketing tactic that the hosted providers do is compare a large upfront cost of a premise based solution vs. an apparent low monthly cost of the hosted. They also fail to tell you that you are going to be paying their monthly cost forever, as long as you use their service. The truth is, once you break the IPitomy premise based solution down to a monthly payment, the hosted solution begins to lose its shine. Additionally, when you begin to compare them feature for feature, the IPitomy premise based system for example, really leaves the hosted competition lacking.
Is Hosted Really Invincible?
A hosted PBX runs over the Internet! No Internet, no phones! Are you really going to forward all of those lines to cell phones while the cable or Internet company fixes that outage? On a premise based system you can have two service providers. A traditional PRI for example, and Internet based SIP lines. Why put all of your eggs in one basket when you can diversify? Can a premise based system crash? Sure, save your backups and use a RAID drive and a redundant power supply to drastically reduce your chances of an outage. If you have a reliable interconnect, you will have the proper backups and replacement equipment available to get back up quickly in case of an outage. Finally, one good reason to use the Cloud, is for backup. You can have your IP phones hit the Cloud in an emergency if your premise based system completely dies. To sum it up, a premise based system gives you more options for system redundancy that a pure Cloud solution.
Well What About Service Costs?
The great pitch of the hosted salesman is to tell you that you never have to worry about service again! Even with hosted, phones still go bad, and if you have a bad one, you have may have to wait to get a new one mailed to you. If you are experiencing problems, dropped calls, buttons not working, etc., you have to call someone on the phone and haggle with them to determine what the problem is. Then you may still be wrong and find out you have a network problem! Is it really worth paying all of that extra money every month to have to do the troubleshooting yourself? Why not save those hundreds of dollars a month, and when you have a problem, someone can actually come out and talk to you personally and solve it for you? I guarantee that the amount of money you will spend on service will not even come close to the money you are wasting every month for that “invincible” system that you still don’t own. Looking at the comparison example, which you will see on the next page, once the equipment is paid for a business would save close to $4000.00 a year for a small 20 phone system.
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